NewsWhip – get the hottest news stories in this reader app

NewsWhip is a cool news reader app that shows you what stories are hottest at any given time. You can follow stories based on location, topic and favourites. The app looks pretty cool and is fantastically easy to use. If you want to know what’s going on and follow the breaking stories as they update, NewsWhip could be the app that is ideal for you.

Pros & Cons:

Pros

Nice UI!

Easy to use!

Ability to add favourites!

Lots of topics to select from!

Cons

Can’t block certain sources.

Unable to search by specific topic.

Features:

NewWhip is a news app with a difference, popular stories are posted based on Internet popularity. By scanning sites like Facebook and Twitter, the app shows you which stories are being shared and read the most, giving you an inside edge on what is hot at any given moment. It means news is immediate, crowd-sourced and up to date.

The app is very simple to use, placing easy-access tabs on one side, so you can quickly navigate to the area you want to. Stories can be found based on location or any number of topics; from politics and psychology to food, gossip and sports. Depending on the origin of the story, when you open a story you get a cached web page which is easy to view and gives you additional options to jump back to NewsWhip. It has to be noted that this transition is remarkably smooth as the view is ‘within’ the app. Unlike certain stories as viewed in Google Currents which then load your browser and take a few seconds to load up- this is instead far quicker.

I like the way you can harbour all your favourite locations and story types in one section, named unnervingly as ‘My Whips’. One disappointment, however, is that you cannot simply search for topics. For example, with popular reader Zite, you can simply search for a term- such as ‘Android’ and get all related stories. Sure there’s the odd science article about robots, but it’s mostly interesting Google Android news. With NewsWhip, however, there isn’t that level of control. Instead Android-related stories will be tucked away under the ever-broadening ‘Tech’ tab.

Usefulness:

For checking out the very latest and most popular news, it’s a powerful little app. I think it could be limited however- what if the news you want to know aren’t that popular? Still, you’ll never miss a big story.

Ease of Use:

The tabs at the side of the screen make navigating around the application incredibly simple. Quite possibly the easiest to use news app out there.

Frequently Used:

This will depend on the user and how you consume news. It might be something you check regularly to see what is ‘hot’ or something you use as your primary news source.

Interface:

The interface is smooth, easy-on-the-eye and well designed.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(4.2 out of 5)

Should you Download NewsWhip? As a free app, I’d definitely recommend NewsWhip. It’s pretty handy and spontaneous to use- you can easily just see what stories are most popular and ensure you don’t miss out on something significant. That said, I think it’s lack of features might hold it back from becoming your primary news reader. It’s a nice app, has lots of potential if it continues to be developed but doesn’t really compare favourably next to Flipboard or Currents.